The land use, land-use change and forestry (‘LULUCF’) sector in the Union is a net sink that removes from the atmosphere an amount of greenhouse gases that is equivalent to a significant share of total Union emissions of greenhouse gases. LULUCF activities cause anthropogenic emissions and removals of greenhouse gases as a consequence of changes in the quantity of carbon stored in vegetation and soils, as well as emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases. The increased sustainable use of harvested wood products can substantially limit emissions into and enhance removals of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Emissions and removals of greenhouse gases resulting from the LULUCF sector are not counted towards the Union’s 20 % greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for 2020 pursuant to Decision No 406/2009/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the effort of Member States to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to meet the Community’s greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments up to 2020 (3), and Directive 2003/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 October 2003 establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community (4), though they count in part towards the Union’s quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments pursuant to Article 3(3) of the Kyoto Protocol (‘Kyoto Protocol’) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (‘UNFCCC’), approved by Council Decision 2002/358/EC (5).
(2)
In the context of moving to a competitive low-carbon economy in 2050, all land use should be considered in a holistic manner and LULUCF should be addressed within the Union’s climate policy.
(3)
Decision No 406/2009/EC requires the Commission to assess modalities to include greenhouse gas emissions and removals resulting from activities relating to LULUCF into the Union’s greenhouse gas emission reduction commitment, whilst ensuring the permanence and environmental integrity of the contribution of the sector, and providing for accurate monitoring and accounting of the relevant emissions and removals. This Decision should, therefore, as a first step, set out accounting rules applicable to greenhouse gas emissions and removals from the LULUCF sector and thereby contribute to policy development towards the inclusion of the LULUCF sector in the Union’s emission reduction commitment, as appropriate, while taking into account environmental conditions in the various regions of the Union, including inter alia richly forested countries. To ensure the preservation and enhancement of carbon stocks in the interim, this Decision should also provide for submission of information by Member States on their LULUCF actions to limit or reduce emissions, and to maintain or increase removals, from the LULUCF sector.
(4)
This Decision should lay down the obligations of Member States in implementing those accounting rules and for providing information on their LULUCF actions. It should not lay down any accounting or reporting obligations for private parties.
(5)
Decision 16/CMP.1 of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, adopted by the 11th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC meeting in Montreal in December 2005, and Decision 2/CMP.7 of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, adopted by the 17th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC meeting in Durban in December 2011, set out accounting rules for the LULUCF sector as of a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. This Decision should be fully consistent with those Decisions to ensure coherence between the Union’s internal rules and definitions, modalities, rules and guidelines agreed within the UNFCCC in order to avoid any duplication of national reporting. This Decision should also reflect the particularities of the Union LULUCF sector and the obligations arising from the Union as a separate Party to the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol.
(6)
The accounting rules applicable to the Union LULUCF sector should not generate an additional administrative burden. There should, therefore, be no obligation to include in the reports submitted in accordance with those rules information that is not required pursuant to the decisions of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC and the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
(7)
The LULUCF sector can contribute to climate change mitigation in several ways in particular by reducing emissions, and maintaining and enhancing sinks and carbon stocks. In order for measures aiming in particular at increasing carbon sequestration to be effective, the long-term stability and adaptability of carbon pools is essential.
(8)
The LULUCF accounting rules should reflect efforts made in the agriculture and forestry sectors to enhance the contribution of changes made to the use of land resources to reducing emissions. This Decision should provide for accounting rules applicable on a mandatory basis to the activities of afforestation, reforestation, deforestation and forest management, as well as to the activities of grazing land management and cropland management, subject to specific provisions with a view to improving Member States’ reporting and accounting systems during the first accounting period. This Decision should also provide for accounting rules applicable on a voluntary basis to revegetation and wetland drainage and rewetting activities. To this effect, the Commission should streamline and improve the outputs of Union databases (Eurostat-Lucas, EEA- Corine Land Cover, etc.) dealing with relevant information, with a view to assisting Member States in meeting their accounting obligations, particularly regarding cropland management and grazing land management and, where available, the voluntary accounting of revegetation as well as wetland drainage and rewetting activities.
(9)
To ensure the environmental integrity of the accounting rules applicable to the Union LULUCF sector, these rules should be based on the accounting principles laid down in Decision 2/CMP.7, Decision 2/CMP.6 of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, adopted by the 16th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC meeting in Cancun in December 2010 and Decision 16/CMP.1. Member States should prepare and maintain their accounts ensuring the accuracy, completeness, consistency, comparability and transparency of relevant information used in estimating emissions and removals from the LULUCF sector in line with guidance provided in relevant Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, including on methodologies for accounting for non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions adopted under the UNFCCC framework.
(10)
Accounting rules based on Decisions 2/CMP.7 and 16/CMP.1 do not allow for accounting of the substitution effect of using harvested wood products for energy and material purposes, since this would lead to double accounting. However, such use can make an important contribution to climate change mitigation and therefore the information on LULUCF actions provided by Member States may include measures to substitute greenhouse gas intensive materials and energy feedstocks with biomass. That would increase policy coherence.
(11)
To provide a solid basis for future policy-making and the optimisation of land use in the Union, there is a need for appropriate investments. To ensure that these investments can be prioritised to key categories, Member States should initially be allowed to exclude certain carbon pools from accounting. However, in the long-run, a move towards more comprehensive sector accounting including all land, pools and gases should be pursued.
(12)
The accounting rules should ensure that accounts accurately reflect human-induced changes in emissions and removals. In that regard, this Decision should provide for the use of specific methodologies in respect of different LULUCF activities. Emissions and removals relating to afforestation, reforestation and deforestation are the result of direct human-induced conversion of land and should therefore be accounted for in their entirety. Emissions and removals relating to grazing land management, cropland management, revegetation and wetland drainage and rewetting are all accounted for by applying a base year to calculate changes in emissions and removals. However, emissions and removals from forest management depend on a number of natural circumstances, age-class structure, as well as past and present management practices. The use of a base year does not make it possible to reflect those factors and resulting cyclical impacts on emissions and removals or their interannual variation. The relevant accounting rules for calculating changes in emissions and removals should instead provide for the use of reference levels to exclude the effects of natural and country-specific characteristics. Reference levels constitute estimates of the annual net emissions or removals resulting from forest management within the territory of a Member State for the years included in each accounting period, and should be set transparently in accordance with Decisions 2/CMP.6 and 2/CMP.7. The reference levels referred to in this Decision should be identical to those approved through the UNFCCC processes. If improvements to methodologies or data relating to the establishment of the reference level become available to a Member State, the Member State should carry out the appropriate technical corrections to include the impact of recalculations in the accounting for forest management.
The accounting rules should provide for an upper limit applicable to net removals for forest management that may be entered into accounts. In the event of developments regarding accounting rules for forest activities in the context of the relevant international processes, updating the accounting rules for forest activities in this Decision should be considered in order to ensure consistency with those developments.
(13)
The accounting rules should appropriately reflect the positive contribution of greenhouse gas storage in wood and wood-based products and should contribute to greater use of forests as a resource, within a framework of sustainable forest management, and to increased use of wood products.
(14)
According to Chapter 4.1.1 of the IPCC Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry, it is good practice that countries specify the minimum width that they will apply to define forest and units of land subject to afforestation, reforestation and deforestation activities in addition to the minimum area of forest. Consistency should be ensured between the definition used by each Member State in the reporting under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol and this Decision.
(15)
The accounting rules should ensure that Member States accurately reflect in accounts the changes in the harvested wood products pool when they take place, to provide incentives for the use of harvested wood products with long life cycles. The first-order decay function applicable to emissions resulting from harvested wood products should therefore correspond to equation 12.1 of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, and the relevant default half-life values should be based on Table 3a.1.3 of the 2003 IPCC Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry. Member States should have the possibility to use country-specific methodologies and half-life values instead, provided that they are in accordance with the most recently adopted IPCC Guidelines.
(16)
Since inter-annual fluctuations in greenhouse gas emissions and removals resulting from agricultural activities are much smaller than those related to forestry activities, Member States should account for greenhouse gas emissions and removals from cropland management and grazing land management activities relative to its base year or period.
(17)
Wetland drainage and rewetting cover emissions from peatlands which store very large amounts of carbon. Emissions from degrading and draining peatlands correspond to approximately 5 % of global greenhouse gas emissions and represented between 3,5 and 4 % of the Union’s emissions in 2010. Therefore, as soon as relevant IPCC guidelines are internationally agreed, the Union should endeavour to advance the issue at the international level with a view to reaching an agreement within the bodies of the UNFCCC or of the Kyoto Protocol on the obligation to prepare and maintain annual accounts of emissions and removals from activities falling within the categories of wetland drainage and rewetting and with a view to including this obligation in the global climate agreement to be concluded no later than 2015.
(18)
Natural disturbances, such as wildfires, insect and disease infestations, extreme weather events and geological disturbances that are beyond the control of, and not materially influenced by, a Member State, may result in greenhouse gas emissions of a temporary nature in the LULUCF sector, or may cause the reversal of previous removals. As reversal can also be the result of management decisions, such as decisions to harvest or plant trees, this Decision should ensure that human-induced reversals of removals are always accurately reflected in LULUCF accounts. Moreover, this Decision should provide Member States with a limited possibility to exclude emissions resulting from disturbances in afforestation, reforestation and forest management that are beyond their control from their LULUCF accounts through the use of background levels and margins in accordance with Decision 2/CMP.7. However, the manner in which Member States apply those provisions should not lead to undue under-accounting.
(19)
Reporting rules on greenhouse gas emissions and other information relevant to climate change, including information on the LULUCF sector, fall within the scope of Regulation (EU) No 525/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on a mechanism for monitoring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions and for reporting other information at national and Union level relevant to climate change (6), and therefore are not within the scope of this Decision. Member States should comply with those monitoring and reporting rules in view of their accounting obligations set out in this Decision.
(20)
Completing LULUCF accounts on an annual basis would make those accounts inaccurate and unreliable due to inter-annual fluctuations in emissions and removals, the frequent need to recalculate certain reported data, and the long time required for changed management practices in agriculture and forestry to have an effect on the quantity of carbon stored in vegetation and soils. This Decision should therefore provide for accounting on the basis of a longer period.
(21)
Member States should provide information on their current and future LULUCF actions, setting out nationally appropriate measures to limit or reduce emissions and to maintain or increase removals from the LULUCF sector. This information should contain certain elements as specified in this Decision. Moreover, to promote best practice and synergies with other policies and measures relating to forests and agriculture, an indicative list of measures that may also be included in the information provided should be set out in an Annex to this Decision. The Commission may provide guidance to facilitate the exchange of comparable information.
(22)
When drawing up or implementing their LULUCF actions, Member States can, where appropriate, examine whether there are opportunities for promoting agricultural investments.
(23)
The power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union should be delegated to the Commission to update the definitions laid down in this Decision in accordance with changes to definitions adopted by the bodies of the UNFCCC or the Kyoto Protocol or of agreements deriving from or succeeding them; to amend Annex I to add or amend accounting periods so as to ensure that those periods correspond to the relevant periods adopted by the bodies of the UNFCCC or the Kyoto Protocol or of agreements deriving from or succeeding them, and are consistent with the accounting periods adopted by the bodies of the UNFCCC or the Kyoto Protocol or of agreements deriving from or succeeding them which are applicable to Union emission reduction commitments in other sectors; to amend Annex II with updated reference levels pursuant to the provisions set out in this Decision; to revise the information specified in Annex III in accordance with changes to definitions adopted by the bodies of the UNFCCC or the Kyoto Protocol or of agreements deriving from or succeeding them; to amend Annex V in accordance with changes to definitions adopted by the bodies of the UNFCCC or the Kyoto Protocol or of agreements deriving from or succeeding them; and to revise the information requirements relating to the accounting rules for natural disturbances laid down in this Decision to reflect revisions to acts adopted by the bodies of the UNFCCC or of the Kyoto Protocol. It is of particular importance that the Commission carry out appropriate consultations during its preparatory work, including at expert level. The Commission, when preparing and drawing-up delegated acts, should ensure a simultaneous, timely and appropriate transmission of relevant documents to the European Parliament and to the Council.
(24)
Since the objectives of this Decision, namely setting out the accounting rules applicable to emissions and removals resulting from LULUCF activities and the provision of information by Member States on LULUCF actions cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States due to their very nature, and can therefore by reason of scale and effects of the action be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In doing so, the Union should respect the competences of Member States as regards forest policy. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Decision does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives,
